Manifestation (al-Tebyan)

Al-Tebyan fi Tafsi al- Koran “Manifestation” is one of the greatest Shiite commentaries of the Koran,  it is the 1^st and the  most comprehensive and valid Shiite exegesis of Koran composed in Arabic by the outstanding  Iranian Khajeh  Nasir Tousi.

The author

Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Tusi, outstanding scholar, known as “Nasir al-Din”, “Khajeh Tusi”, “The master of man”, “the 11th intellect” and “The 3rd master” (1201 - 1247), Mashhad – Iran.
He was an astronomer and Shia politician, in 1256 lured the assassin leader Rukn al-Din Khurshah into the hands of the Ilkhan Hulegu, accompanied the latter to Baghdad and founded the observatory of Maragha.

He had a strong sympathy with the Twelver Shia, to him a certain degree of mercy was shown during the Mongol holocaust and whose sanctuaries were spared. He wrote on dogmatics, logic and philosophy, law and belles – lettres, and above all on the sciences, in particular on astronomy.
Khajeh Nasir was fully versed at all the common sciences of his own time: theology, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy and literature.
He also wrote some poems in Arabic and Persian. He followed the Peripatetic philosophers (pshilosophers who follow Aristotle) and his own philosophy was based on Avicenna’s.

His masters:
1-    Muhammad Ibn Hasan Tusi “his father” (in transmitted sciences)
2-    Ibn Meytham Bahrani
3-    Muhaghegh Helli
4-    Qutb al-Din Mesri
5-    Farid al-Din Damad

Students:
1-    Qutb al-Din Shirazi
2-    Allameh Helli
3-    Ibn Fuwati
4-    Ibn Heytham Bahrani
5-    Seyyed Rukn al-Din Astar Abaadi,  etc.

Works:
70 works in Arbaic and Persian have been attributed to him but it is doubtfull that some of them to be written by Khajeh Nasir. The following list are some of his works:

1-    Abstraction of beliefs (on theology)
2-    Explanation of the book “Isharat” (written by Avicenna, on philosophy)
3-    The rules of beliefs (on the principles of beliefs)
4-    The Tusi ethics (on ethics and the practical philosophy)
5-    The beginning and the end (on the creation and resurrection, in Persian)
6-    Almagest (on mathematics)
7-    Euclid (on geometry)
8-    Abstraction of logic
9-    The base of extraction (on logic, in Persian)

10- The Ilkhani astronomical tables (on astronomy)
11- The rules of discussions
12- the 20 sections on the knowledge of astrolabe
13- The treatise remonstrances
14- Abstraction of geometry
15- Proving the essence
16- Proving the intellect
17- The stereoscopic cup (on astronomy, in Persian)
18- Proving the existence of God
19-  Treatise “force and free will” (in Persian)
20- On caliphate

The book structure

Al-Tebyan includes commentary of all the Koranic surahs, compiled in 10 volumes as well as the sciences related to exegesis of the Koran, such as. Rhetaric , morphology and syntax, Hadith , jurisprudence, history, theology, and also different methods of reading the   Koran, Koranic stories, abrogating , religious  beliefs. Khajeh Nasir explains Koranic verses with prophetic Hadith, and also concerning the sciences related to the commentary of the Koran.

The author divides Koranic versed into four groups as follows:

1- The verses whose knowledge is known only by God (for example time of Resurrection)

2- The verses whose appearance is the same as their conception (“Do not kill any person whom God has forbidden) (6/151)

3- The verses whose appearance does not indicate the meaning [the verses indicating the details of performing haj]

4- The verses in which one word refers to two or more meanings.

Khajeh Nasir also divides Koranic verses into the explicit and
implicit –verses. He explains the reasons of existence of implicit verses in the Koran.

The author also concerns abrogating the Koran.

The book was published in 1950.

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